About 50% of large enterprises are expected to have hybrid cloud deployments by late 2017, a new report reveals.
Gartner’s latest report reveals that the hybrid cloud computing remains at the same position that private cloud was about three years ago.
Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst Thomas Bittman said that virtualisation trims down capital expenses, and standards and automation reduce operational expenses.
"However, taking the next step of adding usage metrics, self-service offerings and automated provisioning requires investment in technologies without a significant reduction in operational cost," Bittman said.
"With this in mind, the driving factor for going that next step should primarily be agility."
The report outlined that a business case for private cloud cannot rely on lower costs as the primary reason when it comes to drivers of private cloud computing, the report outlines.
In addition, IT is required to be aware of where agility could make a variation in existing services, be aware of what new services would be of use if offered with agility, while working in collaboration with IT’s customers to make such determinations.
According to the research firm, cloud services necessitate operational processes that are designed for speed and tailored for the services offered.
However, an embedded IT culture targeted at technical expertise would not be compatible with a fully automated, self-service model that requires a service-oriented, team approach.
"Too often, private cloud projects are started by choosing a technology, but technology itself does not solve the transformational people and process issues," said Mr. Bittman.
"It is much better to focus first on an approach to make transformative changes. In many cases, that means creating a separate organisation outside of traditional IT processes — at least to incubate these projects — and focusing first on a simple project that has buy-in between IT and IT’s customers."
Gartner notes that the advancement made with private cloud differ extremely, with most of deployments being initially small, with a limited scope of functionality.
Within the next few years, smaller players will likely be acquired or go out of business because of the importance of integration throughout the cloud management platform.
"Vendors are promoting private cloud computing as ‘the next thing’ for infrastructure and operations — and it is, but only for the right services," Bittman said.
"Virtualisation is a horizontal, very broad trend, impacting a high percentage of IT infrastructure.
"Private cloud is a specific style of computing that will leverage virtualisation, but is not appropriate for all services.
"While the majority of midsize and large enterprises will build and deploy private cloud services over the next few years, private cloud will only be used for specific, appropriate services."
